Whether you’ve been into ham radio for years or you’re a newbie chances are you have purchased one the the low cost Baofeng radios. It for sure is a nice little radio and great for a beginner Ham operator, but the instructions that come with this radio are lacking to say the least. You can’t beat these for the money. At the time I bought mine I gave exactly $35 for it…shipping and all. Now the same radio is around $30.

Our first meeting of 2014 has come and gone and we have several changes to announce. January is when we hold our club officer elections and we have some new names in the mix this year. The new elected officers are:

President – Mike Newman WD4EFZ

Vice President – Ken Wontor WA9WJL

Secretary – Gene Summers N4FZ

Treasurer – Paul Smith N4DX

We had a nice turnout with 32 in attendence with several taking exams. Daniel KG4JXH upgraded to General Class tonight so congratulations Daniel.

Other topics discussed tonight were the latest on the repeater controller failure. As many have noticed the W4NJA 147.060 repeater is currently off the air. The repeater has experienced a failure that several members are working to resolve. 147.060 should be up and running soon so stay tuned. Remember that the Sunday night net will be on the KD4DVI 147.120 repeater until our main machine is fixed so keep that in mind. PL tone for 147.120 is 179.9 also.

US Islands Announcement: The US Islands on the air program has a new island that will be very easy to activate. The Power House Operations Center at Kentucky Dam qualifies under this award, you can drive right up to it and set up. It has a designation of KY021R. Go to http://www.usislands.org for more information.

2014 PARA activities: Please be thinking about any activities you would like to see the club participate in this year and let us know at the next meeting. Special events, contests, you name it just let us know. You might be surprised how many others would want to join.

We are pleased to announce that John Hudson KO4XJ has assumed the duties of Kentucky Section Emergency Coordinator effective January 1, 2014. John has served as the past president of the Paducah Amatuer Radio Association, McCracken County EC and District 1 DEC. Please continue to give John your support as he takes over this very important role. Congrats John!

With John’s busy schedule I (Rob KC9VFV) have voluteered to take over the PARA website updates. If you have any suggestions or ideas on what you would like to see on here please let me know.